Garrison Detractors Persist

All is not smooth sailing for Mike Garrison, the former Wise Administration official and West Virginia University's president-elect.

Though more than a month has passed since the contentious final phase of the presidential search process, WVU's faculty senate has voted 33-29 to declare "no confidence" in that process, The Charleston Gazette reports.

WVU math department chairman Sherman Riemenschneider wanted the senate to commission an investigation into how the search was conducted. That failed 37-10 with one abstention, the newspaper reported.

Before Garrison's selection by the Board of Governors, the faculty senate had voted 47-5 to endorse the other finalist, former WVU dean and Kansas State Provost M. Duane Nellis.

The Board of Governors has since agreed on a contract for Garrison, 38, the Charleston Daily Mail reports. The package includes $255,000 starting in July, a five-bedroom home with dining space for 150 guests, and vehicles for him and his wife. The perks also include health coverage and "an automatic pay raise each year that will match the average percentage increases handed out to faculty and administrators," the newspaper reports.

But the Daily Mail also notes that "According to a report from the College and University Personnel Association, a median salary for university presidents in 2004 was $290,000... Garrison's salary would place him 170th out of 183 public university presidents, based on a 2006 earnings scale from the Chronicle of Higher Education."

Update: AP reports that in crafting the contract for Garrison, WVU's Board of Governors has sought to rule out moonlighting by Garrison while he's officially president-elect (July 1 - Sept. 21). A lawyer for the Spilman, Thomas & Battle firm, Garrison has also been a lobbyist with one of the largest client lists at the Legislature.